


love and now

by bigspoonnoya



Series: love and victory [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Getting Back Together, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 19:39:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6164359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigspoonnoya/pseuds/bigspoonnoya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After their break-up three years prior, Hinata attends Kageyama's final university match.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love and now

**Author's Note:**

> this is a sequel to my first ever kagehina one shot, [love and victory](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4107055). you don't have to read that one to enjoy this, but, background: hinata and kageyama went to the same university, dated for six months, and then kageyama transferred to play volleyball at a championship school several hours away; hinata ended the relationship because he didn't want to do long distance for three years. essentially.
> 
> the e rating is for smut... this fic is about two people who want to get back together slowly reuniting over the course of a few days. i hope you enjoy it.

“Tokyo.”

The man sitting beside him on the train turns away. Weirded out at this guy muttering the name of their destination to himself.

Hinata doesn’t care. He says it again, slower, feeling it with his tongue. _Tohhh. Kyyyy. Ohhhh._

The city blooms along the Shinkansen line, snowy and glittering in the clean winter sun, not a drop of rain in sight. He presses his cheek to the window, and draws a circle in the condensation on the glass. Two dots, a smile: a face. He adds some longish hair, and glaring eyebrows.

By no means is this his first trip to Tokyo, but it’s the first journey that has ever asked him to wonder, _What if this were home?_

In a few short weeks he will graduate from university and become a teacher. In a few months—weeks, really—he will _graduate_ from _university_ and become a _teacher._ It doesn’t matter how many times he repeats this to himself, it never quite earns the sway of reality. In his mind it’s this little thing, a ceremony penciled in on the calendar, not… the beginning of his adult life.

He pulls his feet up under him in the seat, then presses his face back into the window. The drawing with the glare peeks up at him from the corner. They aren’t far from the station, now, he can tell from the gradual change in the blurred landscape along the route.

“Why go to Tokyo when we’ve got exams coming up?” his roommate, Hikaru-chan, had asked this morning as he shoved the last of his things into a suitcase. Always running late. Like Hikaru-chan, all his peers have their noses in a books, wanting to make sure they complete their studies in good form. Hinata’s thoughts are scattered at best.

“I have an interview at a school!” This is true. He does have a meeting with the officers at a high school, in Bunkyo, on Monday. It’s also true that today is Friday.

“You’ve given yourself a lot of time to prepare,” says Hikaru-chan, watching him try to cram volleyball shoes into his duffel. “Why’re you packing those?”

“Lots of old teammates in Tokyo,” is Hinata’s highly evasive (highly pitched) answer, and he shrugs and doesn’t meet Hikaru’s eye.

He hears his friend sigh and his footsteps fade as he pads back down the hall, saying, “So it’s a social call after all.”

Hinata smiles to himself, struggling with the zipper of his bag. His heart beats at the cage of his chest; it insists he knows its excitement, that he won’t be allowed to forget.

He can feel it now too, while he watches the station platform materialize outside his window. _Thump. Thump. Thump._ It’s a sunny winter day in Tokyo.

He steps off the train and there’s a moment of panic. He has no directions, no idea which way he should exit the station, which subway line he’s looking for. His only guidance for this leg of the trip is a flyer. He pulls it out now, and rereads the information he’s read twenty times now.

ALL JAPAN INTERCOLLEGIATE VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

 _Monday November 30_ _ th _ _\- Sunday December 6_ _ th _

_Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, Sendagaya, Shibuya_

He looks up and there are people streaming around him, a sea of people, enough people he thinks he can feel tears welling in his eyes. The dark heads bob above him and disappear only to be replace with others, in a moment, turning over and over again and blurring his vision. _Which way to Sendagaya?_ he wants to shout at them, but—he’s just nervous. He’s old enough now to tell the difference between that and legitimate fear, or sadness.

Eventually he wises up, camps out on a bench with his bag, and looks up directions on his phone. He’s still fumbling around, squinting back and forth between the phone and the signage in the station, but he isn’t lost. Not yet, anyway. And when he follows the instructions closely, it only takes him twenty minutes to route himself from Tokyo Station to Sendagaya Station, and another five to stumble out of the station and see the angular grey structure of the stadium rising out of the concrete, awaiting him.

Inside it’s all chaos. Air Salonpas, even in the hallways. Shoes squeaking on tile. People wearing their jerseys, the colors of their schools. Hinata’s got on his Tohoku sweatshirt, in the university’s trademark purple, and he’s one of a kind in the crowd. Tohoku doesn’t have a volleyball team. It has a _club_ —which he and Kageyama became acquainted with throughout their first year, and Hinata still regularly attends—purely intramural. They have fun, but it’s nothing like this.

He misses it. The noise and the energy. The way the air hums.

It’s good to be back in the building, even if he isn’t back on the court. It’s _something_. He grips the strap of his duffel, feeling color rise in his face, and wanders into the main arena.

There’s a match on, right now—the shouts and chants he could hear from the lobby rage in here, people clapping along. This is the fourth or fifth day of the tournament so whatever’s going on, these teams are competing for a good finish. The final, maybe, the championship. It’s so much sound, he’s back at the Spring High again in an instant. He rushes down to the rail to watch, not bothering to find a seat, his heart in his throat.

He doesn’t register the score or the names of the universities, he just goes right to scanning the shapes of the men fighting it out on the court below. The six in action on each side, and then more on the sideline—but Kageyama won’t be on the sideline, no.

He didn’t come here to see Kageyama sit on the sideline. He came here to see him _play_.

And for that reason alone, the universe can’t allow him to be sat out. Hinata has read the blogs and little entries in the sports section, he knows that Kageyama has proven himself integral to his team’s success. When Hinata sees him again, for the first time in a year in a half, he’ll be setting. Has to be.

He looks and looks and looks. Kageyama isn’t there.

His stomach sinks. He hadn’t even thought to look online for the results of the tournament so far—had Tsukuba been eliminated earlier? Kageyama’s final game in college, and Hinata—had he missed it?

He grips the railing with white-knuckled hands. On the court, someone hits an incredible cross and the whistle blows and one of the teams, in black and yellow, erupts in celebration. But it’s not the kind of celebration you’d expect from a championship win, it’s more tepid, it’s consolatory.

As the round of applause dies back down, he catches the conversation happening to his right—

“I’m not surprised. Chuo took out Hosei handily in the semi, Tokai and Tsukuba—” Hinata turns at the name of Kageyama’s university. “—fought tooth and nail.”

There are a couple of old men slumped in seats a row back from the rail. They wear official-looking jackets that Hinata fails to place. The second man shrugs.

“I thought that was Tsukuba’s weakness.”

“ _Weakness?_ ” Hinata says to himself, indignant, but they must not hear him.

The first man flaps his hand. “Tsukuba is the best it’s been in fifteen years. Them and Tokai, they’re old rivals, that’s why they fought so hard.”

Hinata gets the weirdest shiver of déjà vu and glances back to the court, where the two teams are lining up. He finally takes the time to read the names on the scoreboard: HOSEI UNIVERSITY. TOKAI UNIVERSITY.

His stomach does the opposite of sinking—he wheels around and bounds up a step, sticking himself right into the old guys’ line of sight. The second one starts, but the first guy looks totally unmoved.

“This isn’t the final?”

The first man blinks at him, then says smoothly, “It’s the third place play-off.”

“Aha! When’s the final!”

“Half an hour.”

“And it’s Tsukuba? They’re playing?”

“Tsukuba and Chuo.” This first guy—he must be somebody’s coach—really reminds Hinata of Ukai-san, the elder. He can feel it in the way he’s being sized up so calmly, with grudging interest.

“Tsukuba’s going to win!”

“You seem confident.”

“I _am_ confident.”

“What do you know that we don’t?” says the man, the corner of his mouth turning up. The second guy laughs, and Hinata grins back at them.

“Enjoy the game!”

With this he slips out of the arena and looks for a way down—stairs, an escalator. He knows from experience how to feel through one of these facilities, to the locker rooms or even just the stretches of hallway the teams will claim as their staging ground. He pulls up the hood on his sweatshirt, to disguise his hair; the point isn’t for Kageyama to see him, because it might—screw him up, or something. He just wants to see Kageyama. At a distance, far away. If he does, he thinks, he’ll impart some kind of… positive energy. He’ll be a good luck charm Kageyama doesn’t even know he has.

Hinata wanders around the lower level for a few minutes, this little purple hooded figure. The chaos before the championship match is enough that no one seems interested in asking who he is, why he’s here, what he means to do.

He rounds a corner and sees a huddle of sky-blue jerseys and it clicks. He had seen that color, in one of the photos on a blog post about Tsukuba’s season.

He freezes, ducks back behind the corner, and watches them covertly. A voice he doesn’t recognize is talking about morale, ganbaru. Sounds too young to be a coach, so the captain, probably.

And then another voice speaks. This one he knows.

“I’ll be tossing to get around their blocks. Not every toss is going to seem intuitive.”

Hinata strains, trying to see over or around the heads of his teammates, to get a glimpse—

“But please trust me.”

That’s all Kageyama says. The captain shares a couple more words, and then they break apart, and Hinata watches furtively from his hiding spot like some stalker.

The backs and shoulders break up and there he is, balancing against the wall in order to pull his foot back in a stretch. He’s staring at the floor, and it’s clear to Hinata from the look in his target’s eyes that he’s in no danger of being found out. Kageyama’s tunnel vision has taken over. He won’t see beyond the task ahead.

Hard to say if it’s the uniform—he wears the number 2, like he had in their final year of high school—but he looks bigger now. Thicker shoulders than Hinata can remember, maybe even a few centimeters taller. The kind of changes he wouldn’t notice if they hadn’t been apart for so long.

Leaning against the corner, he watches for another minute or so as Kageyama stretches more—touches his toes, pulls each arm across his chest. Then Hinata accidentally catches the eye of a Tsukuba teammate, who’s pulling on his kneepads, and he gets a frown, a _do you belong here?_ stare. And so he makes a run for it, back to the spectator stands, and waits for the game to begin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In retrospect, Hinata isn’t sure if they’d ever actually promised to stay in touch. Maybe it was just assumed, because their break up had been so open-ended, that they wouldn’t give up on their ongoing platonic maybe-eventually. Maybe that’s why he feels guilty, because somewhere along the way, they _had_ given up.

They see each other twice in the three year interim between their parting at Sendai Station and Kageyama’s final university match in Tokyo.

The first time is a short five months later. They talked more in those five months than they would in the next two and a half years, combined—it was all updates on Kageyama’s new team at Tsukuba, and Hinata filling him in on the activities of their mutual friends at Tohoku, and the persistence of their inside jokes. In a way, Hinata now knows—he hadn’t seen it then, or he’d willed himself not to understand—they were still dating. After half a year together, they couldn’t just _stop_.

Then Kageyama came home for the summer. They got ice cream on his first night back, the first thing Kageyama did when he arrived home in Sendai. They’d gone back to Hinata’s dorm and there was a kiss (a mutual error, no one person’s fault over another) and Kageyama said his goodnight hastily. And Hinata didn’t hear from him for the rest of that summer. His texts were ignored. His phone calls weren’t answered.

If this were another situation, and Hinata had been really hurt or angry about it, he would have shown up at Kageyama’s house, thrown rocks at his window, shouted half-baked insults until he came down stairs. But he knows that Kageyama doesn’t pull away to _hurt him_ , he pulls away to protect himself. Just like he did before, after high school, but now instead of being cowardly… it’s the only smart thing to do.

So Hinata lets him go. He searches for distraction. Sendai is a big city full of interesting, wonderful, beautiful people, and he’s interesting and wonderful and beautiful too, and he lets himself be young and outgoing.

They see each other again the next summer, briefly, at a team reunion in Karasuno’s second gym. They put more effort than usual into bickering, for the sake of their old teammates, but Hinata thinks at times he comes off mean, and Kageyama comes off genuinely bitter. But it’s just a few hours. They get through it. They don’t come within a foot of each other the whole night, and when it’s time to leave, Hinata can barely squeeze out a cheerful “See you!” before he sprints off to the parking lot.

Being excited as he is to see Kageyama today, a year and a half later—it’s been ages since he felt that.

But he is, as always, a creature of stubborn hopefulness.

In a couple of months, the wall built by distance and educational obligation comes crumbling down. He has let himself contemplate, maybe too much, the light that will stream through from the other side. He has imagined climbing the rubble, entering into a world beyond Sendai. There are schools all over Japan, and if he doesn’t find a teaching job right away he could wait tables, or something. He could go wherever. Wherever Kageyama wants to go, that is.

He knows nothing about Kageyama’s plans after graduation, but a text or an email or even a phone call hadn’t seemed sufficient for such a big question. With them, it’s not going to be like it’s been with his other friends—the job and the city and the apartment, the _I’ll be a salaryman in Tokyo_ or _I’ve got an internship in Osaka—_ how many hundreds of these answers has he heard in the past few weeks? But when Kageyama answers, it’ll be an answer to a question Hinata has about his own future, too.

And he thinks he wants Kageyama to be looking at him when he asks, so Kageyama can _remember_ , and Hinata will smile at him in a way that says, _that’s right, it’s me!_ He refuses to see the shadowy side of the question mark. He _can_ see it, now that he’s an adult, but he won’t. Not for something so important. For important things you should act on what’s at your very core, not on what experience has conditioned you to believe.

It’s not to say that everything rides on this one question, because he can handle rejection, he’s been doing it his whole life. But the act of sending out this offering is cathartic: he imagines opening his hands and letting the possibility drift away from him as a dandelion, and he can only feel lightness when it catches in the breeze.

It’s a catharsis that’s three years in the making. In all his waiting and sacrifice, he cried and was swollen with pride, he hated himself for letting Kageyama go, he hated Kageyama for leaving. He kicked and he screamed every so often, and then he trained himself to forget, only to remember again at the most inconvenient moments—usually in bed with someone he very much liked. That never made for a happy feeling.

He wished they had stayed together. It was his decision, and there were days he could hit himself for it. He thought about long distance phone calls or webcam sessions. About how good it could be when they reunited on weekends or something, how it would be this explosion, everything pent up pouring out of them.

He wished they’d split up. _Really_ split up, permanently. It’s hard to admit this now, when he’s so ready for them to begin again. But sometimes he hurt so much he would think how much easier it is to mourn something that’s dead, instead of hoping it’ll come back to life.

But he wasn’t miserable, no. Everything he’d felt was just the echo of impatience, his cardinal sin. It would be wrong to say he had stewed in all these frustrations for three long years, because he hadn’t. They had just flitted in and out with the rest of his whims and impressions, and some were more stubborn than others.

He hopes vaguely that Kageyama had the smart sense not to stew, but that might be expecting too much of him. That’s the dark side of the question mark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tsukuba has a proper cheering section. That’s something they never got at Karasuno, even after two consecutive trips to the Spring High. He sits just down from them, but cheers equally loud, as they watch the University of Tsukuba Volleyball Team win their first championship in more than fifteen years.

Chuo, their opponents, came out in all black and Hinata’s heart had skipped a beat, and he wondered if Kageyama felt that strangeness too—an enemy in their old color. But at this distance he can’t sense any cracks in Kageyama’s steely exterior. He looks perfectly composed, and he plays like he’s perfectly composed. The form of his tosses is incredible, amazing, beyond those things. Beyond the scope of Hinata’s adjectives. It reminds him of art, the curve of his arms as he sends the ball right where it needs to be, every time, right on time. The only art he’s ever appreciated, honestly.

He doesn’t actually watch Kageyama for the whole match and he surprises himself with that. Hinata loves volleyball… more than anything else in the world, probably, and Kageyama’s style of play is electric when he’s at his best, which he is today. But the nature of a setter is to control the board, and so Hinata’s eyes wander to the spikers who slam down his tosses, and the blockers who help him form a wall, and the libero who sends him the ball off an excellent receive. Volleyball, a game of connection, isn’t conducive to the glory of just one person.

Or just one team. Chuo is good, scary good. They trade sets back and forth, until the fifth—of course, they’re fighting to be the best in the _country_ , and they’ve both come so far. Even at the Spring High, Karasuno had never made the final. And he’s jealous—just a little—but of course he’s jealous. Down there on the court are the best and the brightest of Japan’s talent in this sport, the next generation of star players and genius coaches and Olympians. How could he _not_ want to be one of them?

When Tsukuba wins their match point, they swarm one another. It’s a familiar sight to Hinata, the victory pile, even though… he’s not so used to being on the outside looking in.

With the game ended his heart races faster, because soon—and yeah, there they are, the new national champions walking toward the rail to greet the side of the auditorium bursting with their cheering fans. Hinata is only one row from the rail but, seeing his chance, he hops over the seats in front of him—twists between the hips and shoulders of the crowd that’s already gathered at the edge, muttering apologies—and throws his chest against the railing.

The team is lined up, in the middle of a bow. As they’re straightening, Hinata shouts, trying to make himself heard above the din of celebration, “Kageyama!”

Kageyama’s head turns. He scans the stands, eyes widening. Maybe he knows Hinata’s voice. No—he _must_ know Hinata’s voice. Hinata rips back his hood, throws his arm in the air.

“Kageyama!”

Kageyama finds him in the mass of people and his mouth falls open. When they look at each other, Hinata suddenly feels that it’s quiet, and the room has shrunk in size—now it’s no larger than the ten or fifteen feet that separate him from his first love, via his first teammate.

He drops his arm and breaks into a grin, the biggest grin he can give, for Kageyama who is staring up at him in total shock and awe. His cheeks are red, probably the exercise and the thrill of the win, but maybe some of it is for Hinata too. His teammates are clapping him on the shoulder and he just stares up at Hinata as if enraptured. But he doesn’t smile back—even after he’s had time to process, he only looks shocked.The grin starts to slide from Hinata’s face.

Just a moment later Tsukuba is being shepherded back to the center of the court for the award ceremony. Hinata watches them slip a medal around Kageyama’s neck, and rubs his cheeks, which hurt from smiling.

He gets caught in the crowd on the way out and it takes him forever to make it downstairs to the locker rooms. It’s ten times crazier than before, the threat of being trampled doubled by tearful parents and ecstatic school friends and serious-looking scouts or coaches. Everywhere he looks, he catches glimpses of sky-blue uniform—Kageyama’s teammates have dispersed to greet their fans. It makes him nearly impossible to locate in the fray.

Which is why Kageyama sees him before he sees Kageyama—his voice roaring over chattering heads, “Hinata!”

And Hinata turns and there he is, surging toward Hinata with a scowl. The expression makes Hinata’s stomach twist. But it could mean nothing, he’s seen Kageyama put on scarier faces in moments of happiness. “Ah, hey…”

Kageyama comes right up to him, right into his personal space. “What are you doing here?” he asks urgently.

“I came to see you play!”

“You were here for the match? All of it?”

“Yeah, it was amazing! Congratulations.” Kageyama’s lip quivers, and Hinata doesn’t know what to do about that, so he just—keeps talking. “I’m sorry I didn’t say hi before, but I thought it would maybe throw off your game if you—I mean, I wanted you to win, I didn’t want to distract you.”

It’s pretty clear that Kageyama needs to respond to this, so he gives a shake of his head. “Yeah. It’s fine. I… thanks.” _I would have distracted him. I’m distracting him now,_ Hinata realizes.

“Hey!” He reaches out to touch Kageyama’s elbow and Kageyama’s eyes zoom to his hand. “I’m going to be in Tokyo for the next few days—we can see each other tomorrow, maybe?”

“Tomorrow…”

“You have to celebrate with your team, right? And your parents—”

Kageyama glances over his shoulder and Hinata’s gaze follows. He has met Kageyama’s parents a handful of times, under mixed circumstances. He thinks Kageyama’s mother probably knows most of what happened between the two of them, and Kageyama’s father absolutely nothing. Choosing a career in volleyball over one in finance had been rebellion enough to last Kageyama years, in his father’s eyes. Hinata sort of hates those eyes—they’re the same blue as Kageyama’s, minus the passion—he hates the way they’re looking at him right now, a little annoyed, without any kind of happiness for what his son had accomplished. Hinata gives them a wave, but it’s really for his mom.

“Yeah,” Kageyama finally manages. He nods as he becomes more sure of what he’s saying. “We’re going out tonight. We were supposed to go home tomorrow, but—” He looks back to Hinata, who smiles hesitantly. “I’ll… I’ll let you know.”

“Great! If you want to get drunk, I’ll totally help nurse your hangover tomorrow.”

Kageyama laughs, but just once, and it’s so dry it comes out more like a cough. “Okay.”

Hinata nods, and tries to figure out how best to take his leave—it doesn’t seem like Kageyama is going to make this easy, he just stands there and stares at Hinata like a broken machine of a man. Should Hinata shake his hand, or bow, or—hug him, even? In the end he gets so tied up in the possibilities that he only extends one arm for the hug, and ends up patting Kageyama’s arm while bending forward. And Kageyama doesn’t move, which only makes it more awkward.

 _Crap_ , is all he can think, as he’s walking away. It wasn’t the beautiful dandelion-sharing moment he had hoped for. He can feel Kageyama’s eyes on his back until he disappears around a corner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hinata has to spend the next thirty minutes just stomping around Sendagaya in a nervous fit, working off all the excess energy. By the time he’s calm enough to look up directions, he’s totally lost track of where the subway even _is_ , and so he loses another fifteen minutes just orienting himself.

It’s another forty minutes on the train and dragging his duffel down city blocks before he arrives at the house on a side street in Bunkyo-ku, where Yacchan’s apartment awaits him. Hinata likely would have stayed with her even if the apartment weren’t empty, but as it happened, she’d gone to visit her girlfriend in Nagoya for the weekend. He’s already got his key; the last time he showed up in Tokyo unannounced she had him one made. “So you can come in without waking me if it’s late,” she’d told him, in her most patient voice.

The interior of the little place—and it is _little_ , a typical Tokyo place—is neat and dainty and colorful, just like you’d expect from Yacchan. He flops back on to her sofa as soon as his shoes and coat are off, and sighs. It’s barely early evening, and he has nothing to do. Tonight will be a long one, if he doesn’t find something to occupy himself. So he pulls out his phone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“So you took the train from Sendai, went to the tournament, got lost, and even after all that, you still wanted to come out with us?”

Hinata smacks some beer foam off his upper lip. “Yeah, why, is that so surprising?”

Kenma blinks at him across the darkened table of their booth, in the furthest corner of an izakaya that Hinata knows is popular with him and his friends. More with his friends than with Kenma himself, probably. “I’ll never get it…”

“Get it? What’s there to get?” Hinata laps up the dregs of his beer, and props himself up on the table, seeing if he can spot the next round on its way.

“Aren’t you tired?”

“Tired?” He plops back down. He hasn’t even gotten to go on a run today or anything—he should when he gets back to the apartment, if he’s sober enough, maybe. “No, but my phone’s dying.” To emphasize, he waves it in Kenma’s face. 19% battery. He’ll be lucky if he’s got any charge to help him get back to the apartment.

“Basically the same thing,” says Kenma, with a smile into his drink. He’s only halfway through it, even though they got them at the same time.

Shoving his phone back in his pocket, Hinata lays his face on the tabletop, trying to bury his impatience. But it’s sticky, and he immediately pops up again.

“How was the tournament?” Kenma’s tone shifts with this question. Hinata peeks at him curiously.

“What do you—”

He’s cut off by a happy, somewhat drunken roar. Bokuto-san has appeared, the tray with the new drinks in his hands, and Kuroo hanging from his shoulders. Hinata grins instinctively at the sight of them—looking exactly like they did in high school, give or take a few piercings and more definition in their jaws. “We come bearing gifts!” Bokuto cries, and lifts the tray above the table, causing a little bit of liquid to slosh out of the glasses. Kuroo reaches up to steady it for him. Bokuto sets down the tray—Hinata notes that there are shots here as well as beers—and Bokuto’s eyes widen as he looks around the table. “Kenma, where’s Akaashi?”

“Bathroom,” Kenma replies mildly.

“Eh? How long?”

“I don’t know…”

“What’s the point of living together if you don’t know each other’s schedules?”

Kenma pulls a face, and Hinata bursts out laughing. Kuroo bends down, elbows on the table, and leans into Kenma. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Yes, and I killed him. You’re next.”

Hinata laughs harder, and lets himself do one of the shots, even though he’s regretting it as soon as it stings his throat. Kuroo claps him on the back. From behind them, Akaashi-san’s voice joins the fray. “Why is it so chaotic out here?”

With their party complete again, he and Kenma have to scoot into the circular booth, bringing them closer together. “You didn’t answer my question about the tournament,” Kenma murmurs, as Hinata’s getting started on his second beer.

“Hmm?”

“The tournament.”

“It was good! Really exciting.”

“You went to see Tobio, didn’t you?”

Ah. He always forgets that Kenma is his most clairvoyant friend. The way he asks, too, makes it sound so obvious. Hinata’s mouth flaps while he searches for an answer, or at least a decent response. He isn’t sure what Kenma wants him to say.

“You two,” comes Kuroo’s voice from across the table, cutting the air between them. “No private conversations.” Bokuto nods in agreement. “What are you talking about?”

Hinata seizes the chance to answer this question in lieu ofKenma’s. “The university tournament! I went to the finals today.”

This consumes Bokuto’s attention right away, and Bokuto’s attention consumes everything else. “Aha! Was it good? Did Chuo do it? My old alma mater!”

Hinata sits back, grinning. “No, it was Tsukuba.” Out the corner of his eye, he sees Kenma stir; he knows Kageyama’s school. Hinata tries to tone down his obvious satisfaction.

“They _beat Chuo?_ That must’ve been amazing. I wish I’d gone, but we had _practice_ ,” Bokuto groans, arms sliding toward the center of the table.

“Missing volleyball for more volleyball,” Akaashi mutters. Kuroo snorts.

Hinata’s hips jerk in surprise. He thinks his pocket might’ve come to life, but—it’s his phone buzzing. He struggles to free it, and makes a strangled noise at the sight of the screen. _Kageyama Tobio calling_. “You all right, Chibi-chan?” says Kuroo, echoing what everyone else is probably thinking. Except maybe Kenma, who can likely seen the screen from where he’s sitting.

“Yes! I gotta take this!” By some combination of Bokuto and Akaashi getting out of his way and him climbing over them, he escapes the booth. “I’ll be back—” He makes a run for the front door. Has to find somewhere quieter than the inside of a crowded bar.

He hits accept call as soon as he’s free of the cocooning noise. “Hello?”

“Hinata…” That’s definitely Kageyama, and he sounds—but maybe he isn’t upset. No jumping to conclusions. There’s an alley a couple of storefronts down from the izakaya, and Hinata ducks into it. Now that he’s moving he can feel how much alcohol he’s consumed in such a short period, and he has to lean against the wall.

“Hey, did you figure out what you want to do about tomorrow?”

“Why did you come to the game today?”

“What?”

“ _Why did you come to the game today_?” It doesn’t feel like jumping to conclusions to surmise that Kageyama is upset, not anymore. His tone is heated and frantic, Hinata has rarely heard him so worked up—come to think of it, he was supposed to go out with the team, he could be drunk too. Which means he’s dealing with an irate, intoxicated Kageyama while he himself is down two drinks and a shot. He grinds his palm into his forehead, like it might kickstart his brain.

“I just wanted to see you play.”

“Fuck—why would you just show up like that?”

“I didn’t want to—”

“We don’t see each other for a reason!”

“What are you _talking_ about? Why are you so mad?”

On the other end of the line he hears voices and a car horn, and Kageyama inhaling sharply. “What do you want from me? Why would you just show up—you know I can’t—what do you fucking want, Hinata?”

He feels himself start to tear up. Whatever he wanted, it’s the furthest thing from this. An angry drunken conversation, over the _phone_. “I was coming to ask you something.”

“You know how I feel, how I’ve always felt, _you’re_ the one that didn’t want to be with me—”

“It wasn’t like that!” This comes out in a sob. “You know it wasn’t. You’re being so _mean_.”

After he says that word there’s a pause from Kageyama, and when he speaks again, his tone has lost the heat of its anger. “It’s really fucking hard for me to see you, if we’re not…”

“I know.” It’s not like that isn’t mutual. Hinata leans against the stone wall, which is cool on his back. He had barely noticed the cold. “I ended it because… I mean, you know why. You said you understood.” He waits to see if Kageyama has anything to say to that, which he doesn’t. His voice starts to break again. “I came to see you because we’re both finishing up school soon, and that was—that was what was always in the way, and I wanted to know—” Drunk and crying in almost-public. “—if you had any plans, or where you were going to be, because I could be there too. I want to be. And I really, really didn’t think you’d be mad at me for it.”

He waits again, this time holding his breath. From Kageyama’s end of the line there is _silence_ —total and complete—not even the cars in the background anymore. Panic grips him. He slides down the wall.

“Tobio?”

Nothing. He wrenches the phone away from his ear and the screen is totally black. He lets out a wail that echoes up the alley, into the city night.

“Shouyou—don’t sit on the ground…”

The streetlight goes dark—it’s blocked in his vision by the arrival of Kenma, his mouth a line. Kenma, who pulls him up and into a hug, while he sobs out of panic and horror now more than sadness. He clings to the folds of his friend’s sweater, his mind going too fast and erratic, like a car skidding on ice.“My phone died—I was talking to him and my phone died, I don’t know what he heard—he was so _mad_ —”

“Just calm down. Breathe.”

But he can’t fit in breaths with all the words streaming out of him: “I have to go, I have to charge my phone, and call him, or if he calls me—I have to go back to the apartment.”

Kenma pulls away from him, to look into his face. “Okay.” He seems totally unshaken, and it does affect Hinata—when Kenma looks at him so evenly it’s like he’s reaching out to still the crazy motion of his heart. The top that won’t stop spinning. “You want me to help you get back to Hitoka’s?” Hinata nods.

Kenma walks him back to the izakaya with an arm around his shoulder—he feels like a child, but he’s too drunk and preoccupied to complain. They get their things, and say goodbye to Kuroo, Bokuto, and Akaashi, who are looking unusually severe. It must be obvious Hinata’s been crying, even though he smiles at them.

“Thank you for tonight,” he says, in his best impression of his usual self.

They all nod, and Bokuto reaches forward to punch his arm. “We’re playing pick-up on Sunday, you should come by! We’d love to have you.”

“Ah, maybe I will! Thanks again!”

He doesn’t talk much on the subway with Kenma. That must be disturbing or something—Kenma, who he’s always known to be content with sitting in silence among friends, pulls out his phone after a few minutes and offers to let Hinata use it, but Hinata doesn’t know the number. So Kenma gets out his handheld and shows Hinata the game he’s been playing recently, and Hinata listens and nods along and eventually asks questions.

Back at the apartment, Kenma leaves once the screen of Hinata’s phone lights up again. Hinata is terrified to see him go, and grateful for the privacy.

He has four missed calls and a voicemail from Kageyama. Sitting against the wall by the outlet, he stares at it for a long moment, thumb hovering over the play button, before he winces and taps it.

“I don’t know why you hung up just now.” Hinata squeezes his eyes shut. So stupid. “I’m… sorry for being so angry. I do understand.” He’d heard at least the first part, then, about ending it, but— “And… _fuck_. I need to talk to you.” What does _that_ mean? Had he heard everything, or nothing, or… “Please call me. Please. Hinata.”

The message ends. There was something sympathetic in Kageyama’s voice, and it makes him hit _call back_ right away, not a second of hesitation.

It rings three times and then there’s the soft click and, like a sigh of relief, “Hi.”

Hinata’s voice cracks immediately. “Hi, I’m so sorry, my phone died—I forgot it was dying.”

“Ah. Your phone.”

“Yeah. I know that’s really dumb.” He bangs his head against his knee. Incredibly, shockingly dumb.

“It’s fine. It could have been worse.”

Hinata allows himself to laugh at that, and their exchange traipses into a silence. Neither of them knows where to pick back up after such an intense exchange, now that the energy has shifted.

“How much of what I said did you hear?” Hinata asks tentatively.

“You said you wanted to be where I was.”

“Oh, um.” It’s hard to tell from Kageyama’s voice what that means to him. He sounds like he’s holding back. “I do want that. Unless you didn’t want me there.”

“What part of what I said tonight makes it sound like I don’t want you there?”

A grin splits Hinata’s face and warmth spills over him like flooding through opened blinds, radiant even in the darkness of Yachi’s living room. “I don’t know,” he says playfully, the anxiety of this conversation shrinking and shrinking and drying up. “You did keep yelling about why I came to the game, so…”

“Because I want you there too much. It tempts me.”

“ _Tempts_ you?” Hinata laughs, and then louder, as a giggle catches on to just how happy he is in this moment.

There’s a groan on Kageyama’s end. “I wish you were here right now so much. We’re in the same city. Why are we doing this on the phone?”

“That’s your fault!” Hinata sits forward, just like he would if they were having this argument in person. “I was going to wait until tomorrow—”

“That’s ages away.”

“You won the national championship today.”

“Yeah, I’m having a really fucking good day, what’s your point?”

“My point is, come over, then.”

“It’s too late,” Kageyama sighs, and Hinata can hear in his voice how tired he really is. And should be, by all rights, but longing still scratches at the pit of Hinata’s chest. Tomorrow does feel far away, even if it is past midnight. He wants to see Kageyama badly, to hold him and to talk about—everything. They have so much to say to each other. Plans to make. “Do you remember…” Kageyama sounds quieter now. “Back in first year. We would fall asleep on the phone together.”

Hinata’s smile doesn’t fade, but it softens. Maybe he’s sleepy after all, coming down from being very drunk for a very short period of time, after a day of activity and high-strung emotion. “I remember.”

“Do you…” Kageyama doesn’t even know how to ask. At this moment in time, it’s the most endearing thing Hinata can imagine.

“Yeah. I would like that a lot.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He wakes up in Yacchan’s bed with the sun on his face, slower than usual, his eyes flickering open. Her linens are white, patterned in tiny pink flowers, and soft and clean-smelling. He wakes slowly because he doesn’t remember, right away, and because he was a little drunk last night so his brain is sticky.

But then it comes back in a flash and he sits up, wide awake, and as the memory settles in his chest he smiles. Kageyama.

“Meet you where? Have you eaten?”

Hinata is pulling on his socks and holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder—he’d had to dig it out from between the pillows this morning. “No, I just woke up! Come to Yachi’s?”

“If you text me the address.”

So Hinata does, and when the doorbell rings half an hour later, he throws it open wide in greeting. Kageyama looks a little startled; he’s holding a paper bag in one hand and a tray with what looks like coffees in the other, wearing a plain black jacket and a scarf and jeans, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, so Hinata holds his tongue, but then he _doesn’t_ say anything and Hinata’s stomach flips. A nervous giggle escapes him.

“Hey!”

Kageyama nods and lifts the bag. “It’s bread.”

“Oh, yeah?”

He lifts the tray with the cups. “Tea for you. Coffee for me.”

“You remembered I don’t drink coffee!”

“Hard to forget, the one time I saw you drink it, you tried to fight a street sign.”

Hinata’s nose wrinkles. “It was giving bad directions!”

“Yeah, okay,” Kageyama snorts, and now that they’re both smiling, Hinata feels less stiff when he steps aside to let him in. His stomach keeps rolling, though—he doesn’t know how he’s going to choke down bread right now.

After he’s slipped his shoes off and dropped his bag by the door, Kageyama heads right into Yachi’s little kitchen to start unpacking their breakfast. “The rest of the team went home this morning. I’ll go back whenever. I don’t have class until Tuesday.”

“Ah, okay!”

Kageyama moves like he knows where everything is, and it occurs to Hinata that maybe he does.

“Have you been here before?”

Kageyama glances at him over his shoulder. “Yeah. I just didn’t know how to get here from the hotel.”

“Oh.” Hinata doesn’t quite know what to do with himself while Kageyama carries things to the little table, so he ends up pacing the room. He hadn’t realized Kageyama and Yachi were still friends—it makes sense, Tsukuba is close enough to Tokyo they could see each other on the weekends— _he_ and Yachi had stayed friends, and she never mentioned Kageyama, which… was probably on purpose. He guesses she didn’t mention him to Kageyama, either.

Kageyama sits at the table and Hinata plops down opposite him, pulling one of the plates with bread toward himself. “It’s just from the convenience store,” Kageyama says, almost apologetic, even though he’s gone to all the effort of unwrapping and plating the food.

Hinata picks at his bread restlessly while Kageyama devours his, sneaking in furtive glances whenever he can. He only got to see Kageyama up close for a minute or two, yesterday; now he’s noticing the shadow of stubble on his jaw, and the way his t-shirt fits kind of tight in the shoulders. They must have a rigorous strength training regimen at a school like Tsukuba.

Hinata starts breaking up his bread into tiny pieces, for something to do. He can’t tell if Kageyama isn’t talking because he’s stuffing his face, or because he doesn’t want to—he certainly isn’t looking Hinata in the eye, no, not so much. It takes him finishing his bread and glancing up to check Hinata’s progress for Hinata to catch his gaze, and hold it.

He takes this opportunity to blurt, “I’ve got a job interview on Monday.”

Kageyama straightens up, surprised. “For what?”

“Assistant teacher, at a school right near here!”

“That’s what you wanted, right?”

“Yeah,” says Hinata, grinning. “In my practice courses back home, the students called me Hinata-sensei, but I’m still not used to it.”

“Hinata-sensei,” Kageyama echoes, the corner of his mouth lifting. Hinata points at him.

“See, you think it’s funny too!”

“It sounds very respectable. So not fitting for you.”

Hinata sticks his tongue out and pops a bite of bread into his mouth. Maybe he’ll try to eat after all. “The point _is_ , I’m going to be in Tokyo, probably. If not this job, then another one.”

Kageyama’s eyes fall to his coffee and he reaches for it. “Me too. In Tokyo.” Hinata feels the color rise in his face.

“You are? Really?”

“Yeah.”

“How… did you find something already?”

Kageyama stares into his coffee for a second before he looks up. “Let’s go for a walk. It’s not too cold.”

It does look bright outside, and so Hinata agrees to this proposition without hesitation. He scarfs down the rest of his bread on their way out.

While they’re walking beside each other their arms brush, and Hinata realizes that this is the first time they’ve touched today. He wishes it weren’t so unintentional; he makes an effort to walk a little further from Kageyama’s path as they wind their way through the streets until they find a little garden tucked away from the noise of traffic, and a bench to share. Hinata finds himself asking a lot of questions about Kageyama’s win and his teammates—had he had fun celebrating?Did they agree Kageyama was the match’s MVP? How was it different from Karasuno? Which of his spikers did he like best? (This last one is a little transparent, admittedly.)

Kageyama answers him patiently and professionally, like he’s giving an interview. When he can get in a question of his own, it’s about the school where Hinata has his interview, and whether they have a volleyball club, and how Hinata plans to worm his way into becoming its faculty sponsor.

The more they talk the more Hinata’s heart grows easy, and quiet, and content. At a pause, Kageyama reaches into the space between them—offering his hand. Hinata blinks at it, swallows, and then pushes his fingers between Kageyama’s, pressing their palms together. He thinks it’s kind of a silly gesture, like holding hands but not quite, but he likes it anyway. It’s the first time they’ve touched, really, during this reunion.

“I need to tell you something,” Kageyama says, voice taking on a roughness that Hinata hadn’t heard just a minute ago. His pulse picks up again, threatened.

“That’s scary!”

“It’s—it is kind of scary.” Oh no. Hinata feels himself shrinking as Kageyama shakes his head and glares at a spot behind him. He pulls their laced hands to his chest. “It’s about why I’m going to be in Tokyo. I just found out a couple of weeks ago.”

Hinata leans forward, and they lock eyes again.

“They asked me to be an alternate for Team Japan.”

“Team Japan?” Hinata echoes. He isn’t sure he knows what that is. It can’t be the Team Japan _he’s_ thinking of.

“The national team. That’s going to the Olympics.”

It dawns on Hinata in stages.

Stage one: He thinks he heard wrong. Keeps trying to play it back in his head, make sense of the thing.

Stage two: He gets it. He grasps the concept.

Stage three: He starts crying. “I can’t believe you’re crying,” says Kageyama.

Stage four: He throws his arms around Kageyama’s neck, he shouts, he disturbs the sanctity of this quiet garden on this quiet street with his shrieking. But this is Kageyama’s _dream_ —it’s Hinata’s dream—it is a dream they had together, once, and the fact that even one of them carried it through to the finish… he feels like that must count as a dream come true.

Kageyama hugs him back. He seems floored, at first, by the volume and energy of Hinata’s celebration, but as Hinata quiets down his arms come up to reciprocate the embrace—and then he’s being hugged tightly. There’s desperation and hunger and relief in the way Kageyama hugs him, the tightness of his hands on Hinata’s torso, the way he speaks into Hinata’s shoulder, voice straining. “Shouyou, I…”

Hinata pulls back enough to see Kageyama’s face is wet, both their faces are wet. “Not you too,” he says, and it’s punctuated by a disgusting sniffle.

“I’m happy. I’m really happy.”

“I’m really happy too, you’re going to the _Olympics_.”

“That’s not why I’m happy, dumbass,” Kageyama murmurs, but he’s smiling, broadly, and he lifts his hand to cup Hinata’s face. The feeling of his palm is softer than expected, and Hinata’s eyes close for a second. “You’re for real about this? You’re not—I can’t do another six months and stop.” Hinata is shaking his head. “It has to be for real this time.”

“It’s for real, it’s for real,” Hinata laughs. “I’m not going to dump an Olympian, am I dumb?”

“This is serious, I’m going to have to travel. Like abroad and stuff.”

“I know!”

“We won’t always get to see each other.”

“That’s _okay_ —”

“It could be hard sometimes. It’s a hard job.”

“It’ll be worth it.” It’s Hinata’s turn to reach for Kageyama—he brushes the hair out of his eyes. Such nice eyes, he wishes he had always appreciated them like he does now. “I’ve been waiting just as long as you, you know.”

Kageyama bows his head and smiles. “If it weren’t for you I’d be a salaryman.”

“Mmm, yeah, you’re right. Sorry about that, Kageyama-san, I corrupted your son.”

“You did. In more ways than that.”

Hinata laughs, then leans forward and laughs into Kageyama’s shoulder. He feels a hand slide under his jacket to stroke the small of his back, but it takes him a while to come down from his laughter.

“Let’s walk back to the apartment?” Kageyama asks quietly, and Hinata nods in answer, out of breath.

By the time they’re walking up to Yacchan’s building, the late morning has faded into afternoon. He unlocks the door with Kageyama standing just behind him, one hand hovering lightly around his hip. His heart has started to race again—this time when they’re alone together, in the calm privacy of the apartment, the mood has shifted from what it was before. Somehow he gets the feeling they’re no longer able to sit opposite each other and eat bread in uncomfortable silence, that the rest of the day will progress differently.

He drops the keys on the kitchen counter and then turns back to Kageyama. They stand a few feet apart, staring at each other. Hinata gives him a smile, with a little bit of _what are you looking at?_ in it when he wrinkles his nose.

Kageyama turns away sharply, a little pink in his cheeks.

“What is it?”

“I haven’t been with anybody since you.”

It takes Hinata a moment to recover full use of his tongue after this confession. Heat climbs up the back of his neck. “You…” He doesn’t know what to say. He’d wanted to kiss boys, and he had.

“I know you did,” says Kageyama quickly, with a shake of his head. “That’s not—we’re different about that, it’s fine, I wasn’t trying to…” He glances at Hinata through his eyelashes. Hinata knows his guilting voice and this isn’t it. “I was trying to say, with this—” He gestures between them, and Hinata laughs in surprise, suddenly catching on.

“It’s the middle of the afternoon, Kageyama—”

“I didn’t mean _right now_ —”

“Is that why you wanted to come back to the apartment?”

“Hinata, _no_.”

“We haven’t even kissed!”

Kageyama takes a step toward him. “That’s why I wanted to come back to the apartment.”

Hinata’s initial impulse is to mirror Kageyama’s step, to get in closer—but he bites down on a smile and leans back against the counter instead, arms over his chest, nose in the air. A little bit of a performance, to drive Kageyama crazy. “You’re still hung up on kissing in public, after all these years?”

“You know it’s different because we’re men.”

“In that garden? No one would have seen us, we were basically alone!”

Kageyama takes another step toward him and Hinata feels like he’s reeling in a big grumpy fish, and it’s amazing. “Are you going to give me a hard time about it?” Kageyama murmurs.

Hinata’s pulse picks up but he tries not to fidget too much, lest he break character.“Haven’t I already?”

Another step and Kageyama is close enough to lean forward, against the counter on either side of Hinata, stooping just enough their faces line up. Well, if he wasn’t red before…

“Are you trying to—” His voice squeaks, he clears his throat. “—kabedon me?”

“Is it working?” Kageyama doesn’t sound as cool as he looks. It’s good to know that at least they’re both freaking out.

Hinata slides his hands up Kageyama’s arms, pulling them together, bring their mouths just inches apart, and when Kageyama exhales—a halting breath, trying to steady his nerves—Hinata smells melon and a hint of coffee and the dregs of toothpaste. His eyes fall most of the way closed. His hands wrap under Kageyama’s arms to hold him just beneath the shoulders, so he can feel when Kageyama starts to shake, and he realizes he’s going to have to be the one to close the gap.

He lifts himself forward and presses his lips to Kageyama’s. The moment they touch he hears himself sigh, and he’s sure Kageyama feels the warmth of his breath on his chin and cheeks, blooming from the solid weight of their mouths together. He doesn’t press hard; he strokes the trembling expanse of Kageyama’s back with his hands, but this only seems to aggravate the problem; Kageyama barely moves against his mouth, but everywhere else, he shakes.

Hinata pulls away, alarmed, and Kageyama’s forehead goes straight to his shoulder. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“What’s the matter?”

“No, it’s not like…”

Hinata finds himself stroking Kageyama’s head, trying to calm him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m amazing. It’s great, fucking great.” Kageyama steps back from him, sucking in a deep breath. His eyes are ringed red, and he pinches the bridge of his nose. “A lot has happened to me in the past twenty-four hours, sorry.” Hinata smiles tentatively at him. It’s been an active couple of days, especially for Kageyama, who usually handles only one intense emotion at a time. He sighs, and shudders, and the shakes gradually still. “Last time we kissed it fucked me up for a long time. I don’t want—”

Hinata grabs his hand, and Kageyama looks up, startled. “You can kiss me as much as you want between now and when I have to go home on Monday night.” His smile shakes off _tentative_ ; now he grins at Kageyama with enough confidence for both of them. They’ve always excelled at that, at making up the difference for one another. Once upon a time it made them a good team, and that hasn’t changed.

Kageyama pulls his lip between his teeth, working through it, and Hinata squeezes his hand tighter. He knows where Kageyama’s suspicion comes from, and he can’t blame him for being so cautious, even though it’s not a sentiment that Hinata—never big on looking before he leaps, and he leaps often—will ever share.

“How many times do I have to say it’s for real before you’re going to believe me?”

Kageyama seems to get his point, now. He shrugs, and uses their linked hands to pull Hinata into another hug. “Maybe I just like hearing you say it.”

“Then just ask me to say it!”

“Okay—”

Hinata buries his face in Kageyama’s shirt and says it over and over, with words muffled by the fabric. _It’s for real, it’s for real, it’s for real._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the twenty-fifth floor of the civic center in Bunkyo, you can see a hundred-and-eighty degrees of Tokyo’s skyline, even Mount Fuji in the distance on a clear day. And today is a clear day.

When Hinata leans over the railing and presses his face to the glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows, the surface icy to touch, Kageyama pulls him away by the tail of his shirt. Hinata grins over his shoulder at the deep frown on Kageyama’s face. “I’m not going to fall.”

“You could break the glass.”

Hinata turns back to the skyline. “All my life all I ever hear is how small I am, from everybody, you included, and now you think I could break one of these windows just by leaning on it.” The sun is setting—that’s why they decided to come up here, after Hinata had dragged them back out of the apartment for sightseeing—which amounted to wandering around Bunkyo for a few more hours, Hinata showing Kageyama the school, and eventually dragging him up here to the civic center, to see the early winter sun going down at half past four in the afternoon.

Kageyama folds his arms along the railing beside Hinata. “You’re bigger than you used to be.”

“Not that much bigger.”

Kageyama shrugs. “I can tell the difference.”

The sky glows orange, and Hinata feels content drinking it in for another couple of minutes before he starts to get bored. “Let’s go somewhere else. What do you want to do—oh, I want to go see Tokyo Dome all lit up at night! There’s Christmas lights. We have to go see that.” He can see that Kageyama is trying not to laugh at him.

“After that can we get dinner?”

Hinata nods aggressively, and grabs his arm to drag him from the elevator.

Once they get to the Dome, they have to wait in line for tickets, and Hinata gets so impatient with this, he almost gives up and leaves, but Kageyama makes him keep waiting. “You wanted to see the lights display,” he reminds him. Hinata groans through his teeth. Everyone around them in line looks like a couple, but he tries not to think too much of that.

He’s seen Christmas illuminations before—there are some back home in Sendai, and the Jozenji-dori always gets lit up in all white this time of year—but that doesn’t compare. At the Dome you walk through tunnels made of lights, some designed to look like starry night skies, others mimicking forests and rolling landscapes. He has never seen anything like this, and he makes delighted astonished sounds under his breath as they go in, tiny _gwuahs_ and _fwahs_. He hears Kageyama chuckling to his side but he’s too absorbed in the display to defend himself. The lights turn them both colors, they dip in and out of purple and pink and green.

To Hinata, who loves color and light, nothing could be better. He exhales and watches the lights turn the smoke of his breath blue. They’ve come into a corridor made to look like an underwater passage at an aquarium, painting everything teal. Hinata looks down at his hands and arms and it’s blue, all of it, the light somehow even imitating the waves water would reflect on to skin. The sight of it floods him with a strong memory, and he turns to see if the same recollection had struck Kageyama. Judging from the way he’s stopped short just to watch Hinata, he’d wager it had.

Grinning, Hinata lifts a hand, and points right into his face. “You’re blue.” Kageyama is grinning too.

“Where have I heard that before?”

“Bakageyama,” Hinata says, the most affectionate way of calling someone an idiot. He starts to turn away but Kageyama catches him by the arm. They’re isolated from view by the curve of the corridor, and even with the roar of the amusement park audible in the distant, it feels quiet, as though they were alone. Kageyama pulls them together and Hinata meets him halfway, grabbing the collar of his jacket while they kiss.

This one is hilariously different from before, so much that Hinata can feel himself start laughing into Kageyama’s mouth, but that mirth gets swallowed up by hunger at the sensation of Kageyama’s teeth tugging his lower lip. They cling to each other, kissing fast and hard and without much coordination, because the moment is fleeting and they want to get everything out of it while they can, this instant that relives the past and heralds the future with trumpets blaring. Even when they break apart, Hinata pulls a trail of smaller kisses out of him, desperately not wanting it to end, even though a few hours ago it was _him_ to say they could kiss as much as they want until Monday—and after Monday, a whole world of chances await them, reunion and parting kisses anew and many in between, but he’s impatient and not even that seems like enough. He accepts nothing short of forever, when it comes to this.

Kageyama has to pry him off. “We’re going to get kicked out of the park,” he whispers, and admittedly Hinata does hear what sounds like a family coming around the corner. He extracts himself from Kageyama’s arms just in time to wave at a little girl in a stroller.

“I’ve seen enough,” he says, tugging Kageyama toward the exit.

“Pick up rice bowls on the way home?”

Hinata nods vigorously. They find a place and order and sit down to wait for the food; it’s a hole-in-the-wall, and crowded at dinner time, so they end up squished together at the counter. Hinata catches Kageyama’s eye and gives him a big smile. Kageyama smiles back, but he tries to pretend like he didn’t, _baka_.

Hinata nudges his arm. “We need to stop at the convenience store on the way home, too.”

“Do you need something?”

Hinata squints at him, still smiling. “Don’t you know?”

But Kageyama’s face stays blank, and he only shrugs. Oh well. It’ll have to be a surprise. Should be kind of funny.

He lets Kageyama carry the food because he’s got this other errand to run, and they walk most of the way home before he finds a convenience store, breaking into a jog to reach the entrance. He calls over his shoulder, “You can wait outside!” But as he’s waiting for the doors to slide open, Kageyama is right behind him.

“It’s fine.”

Hinata tries not to giggle, lest he give anything away. Kageyama follows him like a very large dog as he roams the aisles, searching.

“What are we supposed to be looking for?”

“Oooh!” Hinata hops in front of the shelf and throws his arms open wide. “Here they are!”

After a moment of drinking in the possibilities, he glances back and Kageyama is walking away from him. “I’ll wait outside.”

Even though it’s been several minutes, Hinata finds Kageyama is still beet red when he exits the store, his purchase in a small brown bag.

“I can’t believe you,” Kageyama snaps, like he’s stood there the entire time with it stewing on the front of his tongue, and he probably has. But Hinata just laughs to himself, and takes off down the street toward the apartment.

“I assumed if you were okay with kissing me in public, you’d be okay being there when I bought condoms.” Kageyama scoffs loudly, matching his strides. Hinata thrusts the bag into his face. “I also got lube and chocolate. The chocolate’s for after.”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions.”

“What, did you not…”

Kageyama stays quiet, looking dead ahead, and a little guilt sneaks up on Hinata. Kageyama _had_ mentioned he hasn’t been with anybody—which means it’s been three years. That’s a long time, and he could be excited, or nervous, or scared. They turn on to Yachi’s street, and a boy zips past them on a bike. Finally, Hinata jumps on the silence.

“I’m not saying tonight! I just thought maybe, before we have to go back to school—I assumed—sorry. It doesn’t matter.”

“No, you’re right.” It’s hard to make out Kageyama’s expression from the patchy streetlamp light, but his voice is quieter than normal. “I do… I get embarrassed.” Hinata surges ahead so Kageyama can’t see him smiling at this confession—which is only a confession to Kageyama, really, since Hinata _knows_ he gets embarrassed and has always found it endearing—hence the smile.

They’ve reached the front door and Hinata works on unlocking it. “If you keep being so embarrassed about sex, you’re never going to be able to access your deep inner desires, and then you’re going to die unhappy.”

Kageyama leans against the doorjamb. “And you call _me_ vulgar.”

“It’s the truth! _Someone_ has to tell you how it is, Kageyama-kun.” Hinata throws open the door and they slip inside together, this time to stay for the rest of the night.

They eat in front of the television, like they used to back when they were together before, and they even manage to find one of their favorite cartoons in repeats. After they’re stuffed silly, Hinata forces his way into Kageyama’s personal space, tucking himself under an arm and pressing his face into the crook of his neck. It takes Kageyama a moment to adjust to their new position—butafter a minute or so of comfortable silence between them as Hinata stays absorbed in the TV, Kageyama relaxes, and his arm drapes about Hinata more naturally, and his cheek touches the top of Hinata’s head.

This morning he felt uncomfortable about their arms brushing while they walked, and now he finds himself looking for excuses to idly touch Kageyama, as they’re sitting together so peaceful-like. He wants to find out how firm his stomach is, how his arms can flex—he saw it at a distance on the court yesterday, but this is different, now that he’s close and has it all to himself. It’s so much to have, really, for one person; he doesn’t deserve exclusive access, maybe. It has, however, been three long years since they were last together, physically-speaking, and Kageyama didn’t have anyone else—he waited, he wanted Hinata, and only Hinata. And that excites him. In a way he can’t be proud of, sure, but it’s the truth. It lights a fire in his belly.

The more he thinks about this, how hard it must’ve been for Kageyama, how he must’ve pined and staved off wanting and how it’s going to be now, with the two of them back together… Speaking of deep inner desires. The more he thinks about it, the harder it gets to keep from touching Kageyama, and the more adventurous his caresses get. He isn’t sure if Kageyama has noticed the general trend toward touching, but he does seem to be enjoying himself; he sighs contently when Hinata runs his hand up and down his chest, and his eyes start to close as Hinata traces his shoulders, the minutes ticking by.

He’s so relaxed, he doesn’t even realize it immediately when Hinata starts undoing his belt buckle. In fact, Hinata’s on the button by the time he opens his eyes, glances down, and makes a strangled noise.

“Fuck—”

“Are you going to make me stop?”

“At least turn off the TV,” Kageyama mumbles, reaching around him to get the remote. The screen goes back and the sound dies in the room, and Kageyama sits back, but he doesn’t go too far, thankfully. Instead he leans into Hinata, his lips parted, and Hinata quickly covers them with his own.

It may have been three years but Kageyama hasn’t forgotten how to make out—maybe it’s one of those skills you never really lose, like riding a bike. He starts a little too careful, or perhaps trying to savor the way their mouths slide together, he _would_ think a certain degree of tenderness was necessary for this reunion. He reaches for Hinata and then makes to pull away the moment the kiss grows needy, but Hinata gets a hand around the back of his neck, and threads his fingers up through his hair—he’s demanding of Kageyama, always has been, but Kageyama responds positively to it. Rises to his challenge. In response to his insistence he gets what he wanted, which is simply everything Kageyama has to offer. They move against one another with energy and overstated interest.

Hinata throws a knee over Kageyama’s lap and straddles him, and his free hand returns to its earlier occupation—undoing the clasp of Kageyama’s jeans, this time with Kageyama not protesting so much, but the sound of his breathing changes. And as Hinata slips a hand into his underwear, he starts to make these noises under his breath—high noises, overwhelmed noises, familiar to Hinata from early moments in their relationship. Hinata stops kissing him, so he can jerk him off properly and listen, but he keeps their foreheads pressed together. “Is this okay?” he murmurs, pushing down the top of Kageyama’s jeans and underwear enough that he has space to work.

“ _Ahh_ …” is the only verbal answer he gets, but there’s a tiny nod against him. He can feel himself starting to react to Kageyama’s sounds, and the heat of him in his hand, how hard he got without much prompting at all, and when he hops off the couch—just fast enough to retrieve their brand new lube—he tugs at the front of his pants with a wince.

Kageyama is like putty under him. He isn’t even pulling a _don’t give me a handjob on the couch, I want us to climax together_ , which he’s been known to do in moments of sappiness. His head falls back and he _moans_ at every slick touch and Hinata takes this all as a sign of how desperate he’s been. How much he wants it. He leans in, talks in Kageyama’s ear.

“Did you think about me doing this a lot?”

There’s a sharp gasp, and a choking sound, and he thinks maybe his partner is too preoccupied for speech, but then comes a whisper. “Arrogant… _boke_.”

Hinata laughs once, and gives the cock in his hand a squeeze. Another sharp gasp, Kageyama’s head turns to the side. “It was just a question! I’m only curious.”

His hips flinch under Hinata. “More,” he whines.

“Hmm?”

“Faster.” Hinata waits. “Please.” He smiles.

And then he listens, and as his pumping hastens he reads the sounds climbing out of Kageyama to tell him what should come next.The higher it gets, the closer he knows they’re getting—Kageyama starts using his hands, his fingers, clinging to him and bucking up into his hand, and that’s when he knows to give a few firm strokes, one, two, three, four—and the heightened cry beneath him, the twitch of Kageyama’s body, the sticky heat on the inside of Hinata’s arm.

He sits back on Kageyama’s thighs and watches him come down from it. Cheeks red, eyes closed, chest heaving. Hinata… likes that. He wants to see more of it. Wiping off his arm on his shirt (he’s already got some there, anyway), he slides his hands down Kageyama’s chest—he has a lot of body to explore, Hinata enjoys this about being with people who are bigger than him.

“Can I be in charge?”

Kageyama lifts his head, and looks at him through half-lidded eyes. He makes an incomprehensible sound. A groan, almost, but slightly more complex. It’s definitely a yes.

Hinata pops off the couch and helps pull Kageyama (who seems especially slow recovering from his orgasm) to his feet. Tucks away his dick so he can walk, grabs the lube and the condoms, starts shepherding their party into the bedroom. His own erection has gotten painful in his jeans. He turns on one of the smaller lamps, but no more. It gives them just enough light to work with, and that he can see Kageyama’s face.

“Not Hitoka’s bed,” Kageyama grunts, just as he falls flat back on to Hitoka’s bed. Hinata climbs on top of him, admiring how much space he takes up, even with his legs hanging off the end.

“Why not? We’ll wash her sheets!”

“It’s… Hitoka.”

“If she wanted to have sex with a girl in _your_ bed and they were all—” He catches himself before he says something that might sound premature. “—if they just got back together. And you weren’t home or anything.” He pokes the center of Kageyama’s chest. “Wouldn’t you let her?”

“I… I don’t know. It feels weird.”

Pouting furiously, Hinata climbs off the bed in a big show of disdain. “Do you want me to go take a cold shower or something? That’s not _fair_.”

“No.” Hands around his wrists pull him back over Kageyama. “I need you.” He settles in with an arm on either side of Kageyama’s head, smiling.

“What do you need?”

Kageyama’s face is still flushed from before, and so it’s amazing when his lips part, and he stares up at Hinata with big eyes before glancing away shyly.

“You have to say it… how else am I going to know?”

“You know.”

“Are you hungry? Do you want me to make you eggs?”

Kageyama throws his head back into the mattress. “Shou.”

The smile fading from his face, Hinata lowers himself to sit across Kageyama’s hips. “I could tell from the noises you were making before.” He runs a thumb along Kageyama’s jawline, from his chin to his ear, and Kageyama closes his eyes. “But I still want to hear it.”

Kageyama swallows. The apple of his throat rises and falls. “Fuck me.”

Ah. Hinata smiles again. “Okay.”

He gets to work undressing Kageyama—shimmying the shirt up his torso and over his head, revealing the splendor, the genuine _splendor_ , of his pectorals and abdomen. They’re more incredible than Hinata can remember, probably because he’s upgraded from fucking an athlete to fucking an _Olympic_ athlete, and it shows. He lavishes the attention of his mouth on his favorite parts—above him Kageyama swallows, and strokes his hair with a hint of hesitation—and Hinata climbs up to start sucking on his neck in reply, wanting to get more sounds out of him.

It’s a pain to have to think about removing both their jeans and his shirt when he could be marking up Kageyama’s neck, trying to leave them both with a reminder, while Kageyama lays still under him and shakes with the occasional, hard-won, utterly satisfying gasp. He has never known Kageyama to be particularly vocal during sex, which of course means that every peep Hinata can get out of him is the hottest sound ever made. He flops off and gets rid of the clothes as fast as he can—this involves nearly toppling over while he tries to strip down his jeans and underwear in one motion—Kageyama laughs gently from the bed.

He can’t strip as fast as he can run, apparently; by the time they’re both naked he’s forgotten his mission with Kageyama’s neck, and tomorrow he will be glad about that, because any more and people might start to ask if he’d been attacked.

Instead, he’s drawn to the thighs. Another amazingly sculpted part of Kageyama for him to enjoy, courtesy of rigorous sports training. He feels like he’s in an art museum, and also very patriotic, as he kisses the inside of Kageyama’s right knee.

The skin is sensitive and Kageyama stiffens immediately at the touch. Hinata lifts out of the kiss, and breathes against him. “Relax!”

“Hinata…”

“What?” he mutters. Then another kiss, moving up his leg.

“Please…” Kageyama sighs, and that gets Hinata’s attention. He raises his head enough to make eye contact, but Kageyama is staring at the ceiling. “It’s stupid, but—gentle. Go easy on me.”

“I can be gentle!”

“I’m going to be angry at you if I cry.”

“Don’t cry.” Hinata slides his hands up the smooth skin inside Kagyeama’s thighs. It’s beautiful skin, and it’s his own personal privilege that he’s the one who gets to see it, the only one. So he leans down and kisses just inside his hipbone. “I wouldn’t want you to cry. It’s going to be gentle.” He can totally do gentle, he thinks.

There’s a small unconvinced noise from above him that suggests Kageyama doesn’t agree. Hinata’s nose wrinkles and he hops up the bed to hang over Kageyama, holding his chin, kissing him with the most care he can manage. He starts closed-mouth, then gradually parts his lips, and Kageyama responds in kind and it’s lovely—and _gentle_. It’s not a kiss that demands anything, only says, _I’m happy we’re together_. He can do that kind of thing, too.

Kageyama exhales, and when he reaches up to touch Hinata’s hair, his hand is shaking. Feeling this, Hinata pulls away.

“Again?”

Kageyama squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m probably going to cry anyway. Fuck.”

“Good crying?”

Kageyama’s eyes open, and he looks up at Hinata for what feels like a long time before he answers. Hinata gets the weirdest sense he’s missing something, that there is more to what Kageyama’s feeling than he understands, but he doesn’t have the time to try with the nuances. For now, if it’s good, he’s happy. “Yeah. Good crying.”

A grin warms Hinata’s face. Kageyama mirrors it, a little smaller, but it means more when he smiles. His gaze falls to Hinata’s lips and then skates down between them.

“I’m ready, when you want to…”

Hinata pecks him roughly and fumbles to slick up his fingers. He’s ready, too, there’s been enough prelude and niceness, he wants to _do it_ already.

He hasn’t exactly forgotten what it’s like to prepare Kageyama—it would be a difficult thing to forget—but the way Kageyama reacts to it, and the sight of his body responding, and his _face_ —Hinata has to work to keep himself from coming in the middle of it. He devises a solution, which is sucking Kageyama’s dick while he works, but it’s almost painful to control himself. If it weren’t for what’s next, he wouldn’t make it.

After a few minutes and three fingers and a great deal of writhing, he gets a big nod from his partner, and retracts slowly, and then removes his mouth with a wet sound.

As he’s getting the condom out of what seems like an unnecessarily unforgiving package (they should _expect_ people are going to have slippery hands), Kageyama starts to sit up underneath him—Hinata almost falls off the bed in surprise, but he’s caught at the elbows by large, strong hands, and Kageyama’s mouth materializes over his. He hears himself squeak in surprise.

“What—”

“You can’t reach while you’re in me. Last one.” Kageyama kisses him again, fleetingly, and then falls back to the bed.

“I forgot about that,” Hinata admits, rolling on the condom. Kageyama shrugs. Of course Kageyama remembers; Hinata tries not to smile. “You fantasized about this, right?”

Kageyama’s expression sours. “Stop asking that.”

“I just think it’s _hot_ ,” Hinata whines, running his palms over Kageyama’s abdomen, again, just to make sure it hasn’t gotten… less firm… in the twenty minutes since he last checked. The glare melts off Kageyama’s face.

“Seriously?”

“Mmm,” says Hinata, nodding, hands still roaming. “Then it’s like, I’m making your fantasy come true.”

Kageyama’s eyes widen, his nostrils flare, he takes a moment to process this. “I did. I—” Hinata licks his lips. Kageyama mutters, like he’s testing the waters, “In my fantasy you’re already fucking me.”

Giggling, because it’s delightful and he can’t wait to wreck Kageyama completely, Hinata pops forward and plants a quick kiss on him. “Last one!”

And he shimmies back down to line himself up, pressing the back of one of Kageyama’s thighs forward with him as he pushes in. Kageyama shuts his eyes, mouth falling open, back arching, and more as Hinata keeps going. It is something else, that sight, Kageyama under him and flushed and so powerful but malleable under his hands, his touch. Between that and the way he feels around the cock, Hinata has to remind himself, yet again, not to come immediately. This isn’t about that, not really, if he just wanted to get off he’d… and just then he realizes it’s been a while for _him_ too, in a different way. It’s been three years since he cared this much.

He makes his final push and that’s everything, all he has to offer, and Kageyama sucks in a deep breath and then another. “Good?” Hinata says—hisses or wheezes might be more fitting, he feels like the tightness on his cock is tightening around his chest, too, though it’s not a bad feeling. Maybe he has a thing for that.

Kageyama can’t talk at all, it seems; he manages to move his head in the affirmative. Hinata gives a little with his hips, a test, and Kageyama moves his head again. _Yes. That_.

He tilts forward and pushes Kageyama’s legs up with him, so that his knees are almost at the mattress again, by his shoulders. They might not be able to kiss but they can get close, enough that he can feel Kageyama breathing hard, that he can touch an ear to his chest and hear his heart thundering. And this way his cock gets caught between their stomachs, rubbed a little every time Hinata moves—trying to be gentle. He starts out slow, doing everything at about half the speed his hips are begging for, which drives him crazy with want. But he understands, it’s been so long for Kageyama—but it’s been _so long_ for him too. And he wants to fuck. The gasping and writhing are good, but he wants Kageyama to unravel. It wouldn’t be a fantasy if he didn’t at least unravel.

He maintains, by summoning up a fortitude he didn’t even know he possessed, a demonically slow pace. Maybe you could think of it as taunting if you were so inclined, but it doesn’t feel like he’s dangling the prospect of more from off in the wings—just like he’s hiding what it is he wants. But it’s slow enough that Kageyama’s breathing evens out, and after a minute or so he starts to move in time with Hinata’s thrusts, raising his hips a little with each push. Getting into it.

When they hit that rhythm, it’s good, and he starts enjoying himself. It reminds him of when they used to play together, and there would be moment where they just—fell in stride, inexplicably, something clicked.He doesn’t even notice right away that they’re moving faster, not because of him, but because of Kageyama, and when he does notice it’s because Kageyama is trying to outpace his thrusts—to get him to go even faster.

“You said—gentle,” he huffs, resisting; he gives a sturdy, uncompromising thrust to punctuate. Kageyama swallows and pants for a second before he can talk.

“I said fuck me, not poke me.”

This draws a gasp out of Hinata, but it’s a gasp of offense, and he immediately stops moving altogether, making Kageyama wince. “That’s so rude! I’m trying to do what you _wanted_ —”

“I’m warmed up, I was nervous—”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Now I want you to go faster.”

“Maybe if you ask nicely!”

Kageyama swallows again. There’s a furrow in his brow. “Please.”

Hinata answers him with a hard thrust—really hard, as much as he can without momentum—and Kageyama lets out a whimper, eyes screwed shut. Could be good or bad. He waits for a word, a signal to keep going, or even a murmured _too much_ … and Kageyama nods. Hinata exhales.

And he gives Kageyama everything. His energy, his passion, his focus. Maybe on some level he feels he owes him something, for waiting all that time, and even though he plans to give him more than _sex_ , it’s not a bad place to start. That thing he felt click between them before, now it locks into place, even stronger; he fucks Kageyama and grunts in rhythm and Kageyama is there for it, at first meeting his hips, and then—as he starts to lose himself in it—he can’t focus on the movement anymore. Hinata starts out fast and gets faster, until his back hurts, and his arms ache from holding himself up, so he falls to his elbows and puts his mouth against Kageyama’s collarbone. They’ve broken a sweat, broken several sweats, honestly, and Kageyama’s skin tastes salty. Hinata means to kiss but bites instead—Kageyama whimpers like he had before. “Shouyou—” _Good_. His name sounds good like that. Hinata does it again on the next thrust and this time, Kageyama moans.

He doesn’t stop moaning. Where before his breathing had evened out, it’s rushed and labored again, and his hands twist into the sheets, white with little pink flowers, and he swears, on and on, _fuck_ and _Shouyou_ dribbling from his lips. Sensing what this means, Hinata pauses to grab Kageyama’s cock between them, where it’s leaking and red and ready, and pumps in time with his thrusts. Kageyama cranes forward, his mouth open, and Hinata has the stupid ill-timed realization that they actually could—he angles his mouth into Kageyama’s just as Kageyama is coming, crying out, the noise pouring out as he spills into Hinata’s hand and on his stomach. Unraveling. When he falls back to the mattress, heaviness washed over him, it’s with the wetness of a kiss on his lips.

Hinata scrunches down, pressing his face into the center of Kageyama’s chest, and sucks on the skin there, pushing himself to move until he finishes. It’s starting to get painful, how close he is, and he’s almost exhausted himself—almost. He glances up and Kageyama’s eyes are closed, and his cheeks are flushed, and his hair is mussed just the right amount. He looks good, he feels—is there a word—with a couple fast thrusts, Hinata’s breath catches in his throat, and then there’s that heat flashing through him, his vision going white. He’s waited so long—since that hand job on the couch he’s been hard, and the release that arrives with such waiting feels especially phenomenal—half an hour, give or take three years—it might as well be the first time he’s come inside someone, it turns him inside out. He must make some kind of noise (he always does) but his hearing cuts out too, so it’s Kageyama’s alone to enjoy. That seems more than fitting.

He falls forward and presses his face back into Kageyama’s chest, its soft dampness pillowing him as he returns to the present time from the fairyland of fantastic orgasms. And even when he can move again he feels strange, as though there’s something sticking in his throat. He doesn’t think he can look up at Kageyama, for some reason, so he keeps his head down while he pulls out, and sits on the end of the bed removing the condom. He stays there for a moment, staring into the darkness with searching eyes, and oh, he feels so strange—not all-the-way sad, not all-the-way happy—

A touch at his shoulder. He turns and Kageyama is there, sitting beside him, his face wet. “You too?” he says, and Hinata reaches up to touch his cheeks and there are _tears_ he hadn’t felt himself shed.

Kageyama wraps him into a hug. Hinata cries a little more, into Kageyama’s shoulder, with Kageyama’s hand carefully stroking his hair. When they pull apart it’s to kiss, and Kageyama does this deeply, and that makes him cry harder.

“I don’t understand,” he babbles against Kageyama’s lips. “I’m happy… I don’t understand why I feel—why I can’t stop crying.”

Kageyama snorts, which is a gross noise consider he’s all weepy and congested. “Because you’re having an actual complex emotion.”

“What— _what_ emotion?”

“Well… if you’re feeling what I’m feeling.” Kageyama slicks some of the wet from his cheek with a thumb. “You… missed me. And you’re happy to be back together, but you’re remembering how hard it was being apart.” His lips twitch. “Or maybe you’re realizing for the first time.”

Hinata gulps. He doesn’t know where Kageyama sees all that, things he can’t see about himself. “I hate it. From now on, I’m only going to be happy or sad. No, I’m—only going to be happy!”

“It’s normal,” says Kageyama, kissing his cheek. Earlier—earlier he’d had to promise not to make _Kageyama_ cry, and now Kageyama is the one consoling him. No, not consoling—because he isn’t very sad, he’s just… _very_. “Let’s rinse off and put clothes on.”

“Yeah…”

“You’ll feel better when you clear your head.”

He nods, and lets Kageyama guide him into the bathroom. And it’s true, when he’s toweled off and dressed in soft sleep clothes some fifteen minutes later, he’s stopped crying and breathes easier, though his eyes and face still sting. Kageyama had gotten out of the shower before him, encouraging him to take another few minutes, and so when Hinata pads into the main room he’s greeted by the sight of Kageyama on the floor in front of the couch, two cups of something clear and the box of chocolates Hinata had purchased set out for them. The light in the main room is off, but the street lamps shine in through the windows, and it’s enough to see by.

Kageyama nudges the candy toward him. “You said for after.”

Hinata laughs and plops down with the food and drink between them. “White day’s early this year.” He goes to sip the drink and barely keeps it in his mouth. “That’s— _sake?_ ”

“Yeah,” Kageyama says, grinning at his own joke.

“Where did you get sake?”

“You don’t know where Hitoka keeps her liquor?”

“No—she keeps _liquor_?”

Kageyama raises his drink to his lips. “I’ve said too much.”

Hinata tries to get a little more of the drink down, but he isn’t quite in the mood to drink, so he turns to the candy instead. Definitely not the best chocolate he’s had, but it hits the spot. “Did you have fun today?” he asks, with his mouth full.

Kageyama squints at him (why? What’s weird about that question?), and he glances at the blank television. “Yeah. I had a lot of fun.”

“It was a good day!”

“It was.”

“Cool,” says Hinata, inhaling. He gives Kageyama a smile and Kageyama returns it.

“I want to know where you got biting from—” Hinata bursts out laughing. “No, actually, I don’t.”

“I’d tell you,” Hinata offers quickly. He feels like that’s the right thing to do, that he should be honest. “Anything you wanted. No secrets.”

Kageyama shakes his head. His eyes have gone vacant. “I don’t want to know. Not now, anyway.”

“Okay.”

“I loved you for so long… and that entire time when we weren’t together. I still loved you.” Hinata stares at him, lip in his teeth, hoping it’ll will him to look over and meet his eye. But nothing. “I feel stupid that I couldn’t… there’s something wrong with me.”

Hinata leans forward, into his line of vision, forcing Kageyama to look at him. “You said before—we’re different. We handled it differently.”

Kageyama shuts his eyes, he knows that’s true, that he’s being too hard on himself. “Yeah.”

“I do feel bad, I guess,” Hinata says, sitting back with a frown. “Not about that. But I feel like I failed you, because it was so hard. I’ve never felt bad about anything like that before… I mean, I did the right thing, I shouldn’t feel bad.”

“You feel bad because you want me to be happy,” Kageyama says simply. Because it _is_ simple. Hinata eyes him.

“Of course I want that.”

Kageyama shakes his head. “You think I deserve good things. Because I’m good.”

“There’s nothing weird about that…”

“You’re the only person who’s ever thought I did.”

Hinata smiles sadly. It’s so like Kageyama to think this way. “I don’t think that’s true.”

“Are you saying, the way you feel about me—that it doesn’t mean you love me?”

“No, I’m saying, there are lots of people who love you.”

Kageyama looks up at him, and he’s crying, finally, like _really_ crying, the way Hinata had before, but there’s a smile on his face too. “I missed you so much.”

Sitting back, Hinata pops another chocolate into his mouth and pulls his legs to his chest. “I’m proud of what you did. I knew you could do it.” He pushes aside the box of candy, and the drinks sitting on the floor, and scoots over to lean against Kageyama. “I’m just sorry I broke my promise.”

“Your promise?” Kageyama murmurs, taking Hinata’s hand in his.

“Yeah—the world stage? I didn’t make it there with you.”

“What do you mean? You’re here, aren’t you?”

As this revelation settles over him, Hinata grins into the warmth of Kageyama’s shoulder. They snug together. “You’re right.” Outside, Tokyo hums. “I’m here.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When he shows up to Bokuto’s Sunday afternoon pick up game with Kageyama in tow, the roar that comes out of Bokuto is enough to bowl both of them over. Apparently he was shortlisted for a Team Japan alternate spot too and didn’t get it, but he knows right away that Kageyama did.

“What happened to your neck, buddy?” Kuroo asks, with a friendly slap to Kageyama’s shoulder. Kageyama’s face visibly burns, which answers the question, and the glare he throws Hinata afterward probably answers any other questions anyone might have. Hinata grins right through it, pleased with himself and his teeth.

They get to playing, which means—of course it does, Hinata hadn’t even thought about it when he’d suggested they spend their afternoon this way—Kageyama gets to toss to him. Honestly, if you asked him to pick which felt better, the sex or the spiking, he’d fumble a clear answer. But there’s a common denominator, isn’t there, so—maybe that would be his answer.

Kenma sits out—with an extra setter, he’d prefer to stay on the sidelines—and when Hinata catches his eye toward the end of the second set, he quirks an eyebrow. _You okay?_ Hinata gives him a thumbs up and a big grin, and gets hit in the face with a serve.

While he’s lying flat on his back, because he’d fallen over like a stray feather, Kageyama’s horrified face appears above him, and he smiles himself silly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Monday night, Hinata’s train leaves first—his journey is twice as long, after all—but Kageyama goes with him to station.

It’s another funny echo of a moment from their past, but this time he’s the one getting on the train, leaving Kageyama on the platform. And it’s sad, yes, because it’s the end of incredible weekend and they might not be together again for another couple of weeks. But it’s not sad like it was then—and thinking of how he’d felt during that parting, it only lends this one a buoyancy, the extra lightness of joy in knowing this time will be different. They spent their Sunday evening looking up apartments for rent in Tokyo. Thinking of how devastated he was before, Hinata wants to laugh, now. Worth it, he thinks.

He has to steal a kiss from Kageyama as the train approaches the platform, he is too embarrassed to offer it himself—and it only makes Hinata more eager. Last time Kageyama had kissed him in full view of everyone on the platform, desperate in his goodbye, and now he’s secure enough to be bashful. Hinata doesn’t want to know the meaning of desperation ever again.

“I love you,” he says, backing away, their hands still tangled between them.

“I love you too.”

That’s no different than it was then. But he gets to say, “I’ll call you when I get in.”

Kageyama nods and slips his hands into his pockets. “See you soon.”

Hinata steps on to the train just as the doors are sliding closed. He finds his seat without trouble, plops down, and presses his face to the window as they fly out of the station. Tokyo blooms along the Shinkansen line. It’s a sunny winter day in the city, unusually warm; not a drop of rain in sight.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to JACK, who made this long-awaited sequel happen. and requested crying.


End file.
